System, method, and recording medium for fuel deal advertisements

ABSTRACT

A fuel deal advertisement method, system, and non-transitory computer readable medium, include a navigation route and fuel availability determining circuit configured to determine a plurality of navigation route maps, each navigation route map including at least one fuel refill center for each of the plurality of navigation routes, an advertisement generating circuit configured to generate an advertisement for each of the at least one fuel refill center included on the plurality of navigation route maps, an advertisement playing circuit configured to play the advertisement for each of the at least one fuel refill center according to a predetermined rank of the advertisements, and a route selecting circuit configured to query a user of a vehicle to select a route of the plurality of navigation route maps including a preferred fuel refill center that the user wants to visit based on the advertisement.

BACKGROUND

The present invention relates generally to a fuel deal advertisementsystem, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a systemfor fuel refill centers to advertise to vehicles/cars (e.g., customers),or offer the vehicles/cars good deals (prices, combo deals etc.) at aright time when the customer needs fuel, in a proactive manner based ona Global Positioning System (GPS) route selection.

Conventionally, fuel-based route highlighter systems propose routes tovehicle drivers (e.g., car drivers) based upon the destination as givenby navigation systems, distance to destination, fuel available in thefuel tank (e.g., petrol/gas remaining in the car) as sensed by in-carsensors and fuel sales centers (e.g., gas stations/petrol pumps). Usersof such systems can choose one of the recommended routes so that theycan reach their destination using the available fuel, or choose a pathon which a fuel sales center is shown as reachable with the currentlyavailable fuel, such that the distance to destination is least impactedbecause of the fuel refill.

However, there is a technical problem in the conventional techniques inthat the fuel refilling stations (e.g., petrol pumps/gas stations) canonly receive customers (e.g., vehicle drivers) without any furtheractive role in that the fuel refilling stations rely on the passive factthat the customers would show up as and when the customer passes by andneed to refuel or stop. In other words, the conventional techniquescause the fuel refilling stations to rely on luck that vehicle driverschose various navigational routes with their fuel refilling stationlocated thereon.

SUMMARY

In view of the technical problem in the art, the inventors haveconsidered the technical solution to the technical problem by allowingfuel refill stations to proactively advertise to the vehicles/cars(e.g., customers) or offer the customers deals (e.g., prices, combodeals, etc.) when the customer is selecting a navigational route tothereby attract potential customers to use different routes based on theadvertisements.

In an exemplary embodiment, the present invention can provide a fueldeal advertisement system, the system including a navigation route andfuel availability determining circuit configured to determine aplurality of navigation route maps, each navigation route map includingat least one of fuel refill center for each of the plurality ofnavigation routes, an advertisement generating circuit configured togenerate an advertisement for each of the at least one fuel refillcenter included on the plurality of navigation route maps, anadvertisement playing circuit configured to play the advertisement foreach of the at least one fuel refill center according to a predeterminedrank of the advertisements, and a route selecting circuit configured toquery a user of a vehicle to select a route of the plurality ofnavigation route maps including a preferred fuel refill center that theuser wants to visit based on the advertisement.

Further, in another exemplary embodiment, the present invention canprovide a fuel deal advertisement method, including determining aplurality of navigation route maps, each navigation route map includingat least one of fuel refill center for each of the plurality ofnavigation routes, generating an advertisement for each of the at leastone fuel refill center included on the plurality of navigation routemaps, playing the advertisement for each of the at least one fuel refillcenter according to a predetermined rank of the advertisements, andquerying a user of a vehicle to select a route of the plurality ofnavigation route maps including a preferred fuel refill center that theuser wants to visit based on the advertisement.

Even further, in another exemplary embodiment, the present invention canprovide a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium recording afuel deal advertisement program, the program causing a computer toperform: determining a plurality of navigation route maps, eachnavigation route map including at least one of fuel refill center foreach of the plurality of navigation routes, generating an advertisementfor each of the at least one fuel refill center included on theplurality of navigation route maps, playing the advertisement for eachof the at least one fuel refill center according to a predetermined rankof the advertisements, and querying a user of a vehicle to select aroute of the plurality of navigation route maps including a preferredfuel refill center that the user wants to visit based on theadvertisement.

There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, an embodiment of theinvention in order that the detailed description thereof herein may bebetter understood, and in order that the present contribution to the artmay be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional exemplaryembodiments of the invention that will be described below and which willform the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.

It is to be understood that the invention is not limited in itsapplication to the details of construction and to the arrangements ofthe components set forth in the following description or illustrated inthe drawings. The invention is capable of embodiments in addition tothose described and of being practiced and carried out in various ways.Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminologyemployed herein, as well as the abstract, are for the purpose ofdescription and should not be regarded as limiting.

As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conceptionupon which this disclosure is based may readily be utilized as a basisfor the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carryingout the several purposes of the present invention. It is important,therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalentconstructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope ofthe present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The exemplary aspects of the invention will be better understood fromthe following detailed description of the exemplary embodiments of theinvention with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 exemplarily shows a block diagram illustrating a configuration ofa fuel deal advertisement system 100.

FIG. 2 exemplarily shows a high level flow chart for a fuel dealadvertisement method 200.

FIG. 3 exemplarily shows an exemplary playing of advertisements asfacilitated by the location-based advertisement system 100.

FIG. 4 depicts a cloud computing node 10 according to an exemplaryembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 depicts a cloud computing environment 50 according to anotherexemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 depicts abstraction model layers according to an exemplaryembodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

The invention will now be described with reference to FIGS. 1-6, inwhich like reference numerals refer to like parts throughout. It isemphasized that, according to common practice, the various features ofthe drawing are not necessarily to scale. On the contrary, thedimensions of the various features can be arbitrarily expanded orreduced for clarity. Exemplary embodiments are provided below forillustration purposes and do not limit the claims.

With reference now to FIG. 1, the fuel deal advertisement system 100includes a navigation route and fuel availability determining circuit101, an advertisement generating circuit 102, an advertisement playingcircuit 103, and a route selecting circuit 104. The fuel dealadvertisement system 100 includes a processor 180 and a memory 190, withthe memory 190 storing instructions to cause the processor 180 toexecute each circuit of fuel deal advertisement system 100. Theprocessor and memory may be physical hardware components, or acombination of hardware and software components.

Although the fuel deal advertisement system 100 includes variouscircuits, it should be noted that a fuel deal advertisement system caninclude modules in which the memory 190 stores instructions to cause theprocessor 180 to execute each module of fuel deal advertisement system100.

Also, each circuit can be a stand-alone device, unit, module, etc. thatcan be interconnected to cooperatively produce a transformation to aresult.

With the use of these various circuits, the fuel deal advertisementsystem 100 may act in a more sophisticated and useful fashion, and in acognitive manner while giving the impression of mental abilities andprocesses related to knowledge, attention, memory, judgment andevaluation, reasoning, and advanced computation. That is, a system issaid to be “cognitive” if it possesses macro-scaleproperties—perception, goal-oriented behavior, learning/memory andaction—that characterize systems (i.e., humans) that all agree arecognitive.

Cognitive states are defined as functions of measures of a user's totalbehavior collected over some period of time from at least one personalinformation collector (e.g., including musculoskeletal gestures, speechgestures, eye movements, internal physiological changes, measured byimaging circuits, microphones, physiological and kinematic sensors in ahigh dimensional measurement space, etc.) within a lower dimensionalfeature space. In one exemplary embodiment, certain feature extractiontechniques are used for identifying certain cognitive and emotionaltraits. Specifically, the reduction of a set of behavioral measures oversome period of time to a set of feature nodes and vectors, correspondingto the behavioral measures' representations in the lower dimensionalfeature space, is used to identify the emergence of a certain cognitivestate(s) over that period of time. One or more exemplary embodiments usecertain feature extraction techniques for identifying certain cognitivestates. The relationship of one feature node to other similar nodesthrough edges in a graph corresponds to the temporal order oftransitions from one set of measures and the feature nodes and vectorsto another. Some connected subgraphs of the feature nodes are hereinalso defined as a “cognitive state”. The present application alsodescribes the analysis, categorization, and identification of thesecognitive states further feature analysis of subgraphs, includingdimensionality reduction of the subgraphs, for example graphicalanalysis, which extracts topological features and categorizes theresultant subgraph and its associated feature nodes and edges within asubgraph feature space.

Although as shown in FIGS. 4-6 and as described later, the computersystem/server 12 is exemplarily shown in cloud computing node 10 as ageneral-purpose computing circuit which may execute in a layer the fueldeal advertisement system 100 (FIG. 5), it is noted that the presentinvention can be implemented outside of the cloud environment.

It is noted that “vehicle”, “car”, and “customer” may be interchangeablyused but refer to a user of the system 100 to which the fuel refillingcenters can distribute advertisements before the “vehicle”, “car”, and“customer” select a route.

Also, although “fuel refill station” is discussed herein, the inventionis intended to include any type of service or commodity-providingstation such as, an electrical charging station, etc. Therefore, thefuel deal advertisement system 100 is compatible with all types ofservice or commodity-providing station energy source fueling stations.

The navigation route and fuel availability determining circuit 101determines multiple route maps from a source to a destination (e.g.,multiple navigational routes to reach the desired destination), given byany existing navigational system, that would either be acceptable tocomplete with the currently available fuel of a car, or over routes thathave fuel refill centers proximal enough that the car will not run outof fuel until it reaches the fuel refill center. In other words, thenavigation route and fuel availability determining circuit 101 maps fuelrefill centers on the navigational routes located at a distance on thenavigational route less than the distance that the vehicle is capable ofdriving on the current fuel amount in the vehicle and delivers that thevehicle can potentially decide to take a route including the fuel refillcenter (i.e., based on a range of the vehicle). The fuel refill centeris notified of the vehicle that can potentially choose a route in whichthe vehicle will need to stop for fuel before arriving at thedesignation according to the range of the vehicle.

That is, the navigation route and fuel availability determining circuit101 can utilize a fuel-based route highlighter that proposes routes tovehicle drivers based upon the destination as given by navigationsystems, distance to destination, fuel available in the fuel tank assensed by in-car sensors and fuel refill stations.

For example, if the vehicle has a remaining range of 20 miles, thenavigation route and fuel availability determining circuit 101 candetermine a plurality of navigational routes to the destination. A firstroute can be 18 miles away such that no refueling is necessary, a secondroute can be 24 miles and the navigation route and fuel availabilitydetermining circuit 101 sends a first notification to a fuel refillcenter of the potential route, and a third route that is 28 miles awayand the navigation route and fuel availability determining circuit 101sends a second notification to a fuel refill center of the potentialroute.

It is noted that the navigation route and fuel availability determiningcircuit 101 displays the plurality of routes to the customer but doesnot yet query the customer to make a selection of which route.

The advertisement generating circuit 102 generates advertisements fromthe audio and audio-visual advertisement database 140 for each of thefuel refill centers that received a notification from the navigationroute and fuel availability determining circuit 101. Thus, the fuelrefill stations dynamically generate audio and/or audio-visualadvertisement (i.e., an advertisement) of fuel deals (or products) viathe advertisement generating circuit 102 based on the fuel refill centerreceiving a notification that a potential customer may pick the route.The advertisement can be further personalized by the past successfulcampaigns with the specific customer, which can be detected using acustomer identification (ID) or the like, and the history of thecustomer at the fuel refill center, as well as from external inputs(e.g., a car fuel refill history as a service).

Further, the advertisement generating circuit 102 can also be configuredsuch that each fuel refill station can view the advertisement being sentout by other fuel refill stations such that the fuel refill stations canpotentially compete with a better advertisement deal to a potentialcustomer. For example, if the customer ID shows the customer having alarge fuel tank (e.g., a truck, SUV, etc.), then the fuel refillstations can compete to give a better deal to the customer with thelarger fuel tank because the amount of profit would be greater fromrefueling.

Or, if the customer ID is known to include a vehicle having multiplepassengers, the fuel refill stations can compete with each other foradvertising better deals to potentially receive one customer havingmultiple buyers (e.g., one car having multiple people who maypotentially buy more food (drink) products than one car having a singleperson).

The audio and audio-visual advertisement database 140 can store theadvertisements and the customer history, customer identification, etc.

Further, the advertisement can be generated as an audio advertisementplayable via an audio output device in a vehicle, a video advertisementplayable via a display device in a vehicle, and/or an audio-videoadvertisement playable via the display device and the audio outputdevice in the vehicle.

The advertisement playing circuit 103 plays the advertisements generatedby the advertisement generating circuit 102 according to a rank on theaudio output device and/or the display device provided on the vehicle.The rank to play the generated advertisements is based on the order thatthe advertisement is received (i.e., a time stamp of receipt), acustomers current location, prior purchases as related to the customerID, a popularity of other customers accepting the route with the fuelrefill station having the advertisement, etc.

Also, the customer can input a predetermined ranking of types ofadvertisements for the advertisement playing circuit 103 to rank andplay the advertisements according to. For example, the customer canindicate that they would like instant discounts instead of rebate typediscounts.

Based on the customer viewing (and/or hearing) the advertisements playedby the advertisement playing circuit 103, the customer can select whichroute he would like to take to his destination via the route selectingcircuit 104. It is noted that the customer can interrupt theadvertisement playing circuit 103 to immediately select a route via theroute selecting circuit 104 if the customer knows the route they wantor, if the customer views (and/or hears) an advertisement andimmediately wants to travel on that route.

The chosen route is fed back to the navigation route and fuelavailability determining circuit 101 such that alternative routes can beanalyzed based on the chosen route. In this sense, if there becomestraffic on the selected route, the navigation route and fuelavailability determining circuit 101 can re-determine multiple routemaps from a current location to the destination that would either beacceptable to complete with the currently available fuel of a car, orover routes that have fuel refill centers proximal enough that the carwill probably not run out of fuel until it reaches the fuel refillcenter.

Therefore, the advertisement generating circuit 102 can generateadvertisements to entice the customer to use an alternative route if thecurrent route becomes deficient (i.e., traffic, there is an accident,etc.).

Also, if the originally presented routes to the customer overlap at somepoint along travel, the advertisement generating circuit 102 cangenerate advertisements to attempt to entice the customer to not stop atthe first fuel refill station that was originally selected but stop at alater fuel refill station based on the newly generated advertisement.

Thereby, the fuel deal advertisement system 100 allows fuel refillcenters to provide audio or audio-visual advertisement to cars (e.g.,customers), on an audio-visual digital medium fitted inside/on cars,proactively at the right time when needed by the customer (i.e., beforethe customer is choosing a route to take to a destination), such as whenthey need to refill fuel as found based on their planned route (alongwith alternatives), destination(s) and current fuel conditions. Thus, aset of advertisements for fuel (products) can be delivered on theaudio-visual screen of the car, where the advertisers include of one ormore of the fuel refill stations (or the companies owning thosestations), advertising the best fuel deals, and/or discounts, and/orservices (such as, a free body wash/dusting of the car) that theybelieve will be of use to the car or the car-owners such that thecar-owners can decide which route to take if the advertisement enticesthe car-owner to decide on a different route than they normally wouldhave selected.

That is, in the example above, a customer would typically not select thethird route and thus the fuel refill station would lose business.However, by advertising to the customer using the fuel dealadvertisement system 100, the customer may decide to use the third routewhich was the longest route in mileage but the advertisement persuadedthe customer to use the third route so as to access the deal (i.e., thebest deal of the offers) promoted in the advertisement by the fuelrefill station.

FIG. 2 shows a high level flow chart for a method 200 of fuel dealadvertisement.

Step 201 determines multiple route maps from a source to a destination(e.g., multiple navigational routes to reach the desired destination),given by any existing navigational system, that would either beacceptable to complete with the currently available fuel of a car, orover routes that have fuel refill centers proximal enough that the carwill not run out of fuel until it reaches the fuel refill center.

Step 202 generates advertisements from the audio and audio-visualadvertisement database 140 for each of the fuel refill centers thatreceived a notification from Step 201. Thus, Step 202 allows the fuelrefill stations to dynamically generate audio and/or audio-visualadvertisement (i.e., an advertisement) of fuel deals (or products) basedon the fuel refill center receiving a notification that a potentialcustomer may pick the route.

Step 203 plays the advertisements generated by Step 202 according to arank on the audio output device and/or the display device provided onthe vehicle.

Based on the customer viewing (and/or hearing) the advertisements playedby Step 203, Step 204 queries the customer to select which route hewould like to take to his destination.

FIG. 3 exemplarily shows an exemplary playing of advertisements asfacilitated by the location-based advertisement system 100.

For example, the vehicle (customer) inputs a destination into the routeplan interface 303 (304) (e.g., the navigation route and fuelavailability circuit 101) and the route multi-caster 301 determinesmultiple route maps from the current location to the destination thatwould either be acceptable to complete with the currently available fuelof a car, or over routes that have fuel refill centers proximal enoughthat the car will not run out of fuel until it reaches the fuel refillcenter.

The fuel refill center 302 receives the potential routes that thecustomer may take via the potential fuel requirement listener 302 a inwhich signals for the audio/audio-visual ad composer 302 c and the addispatcher 302 b (e.g., the advertisement generating circuit 102)generates advertisements from the audio and audio-visual advertisementdatabase 140 for each of the fuel refill centers that received anotification from the route multi-caster 301.

The ad receiver 303 a, ad ranker 303 b, and the ad player 303 c of thecar audio-visual screen 303 (e.g., the advertisement playing circuit103) receives the advertisements from the ad dispatcher 302 b and playsthe advertisements generated by the audio/audio-visual ad composer 302 caccording to a rank as determined by the ad ranker 303 b.

Thereby, the vehicle/customer listens to the advertisements played bythe car audio-visual screen 303 selects the route using the routemulti-caster 304 (e.g., the route selecting circuit 104) that thecustomer would like to use based on viewing the advertisements.

Exemplary Hardware Aspects, Using a Cloud Computing Environment

It is understood in advance that although this disclosure includes adetailed description on cloud computing, implementation of the teachingsrecited herein are not limited to a cloud computing environment. Rather,embodiments of the present invention are capable of being implemented inconjunction with any other type of computing environment now known orlater developed.

Cloud computing is a model of service delivery for enabling convenient,on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computingresources (e.g. networks, network bandwidth, servers, processing,memory, storage, applications, virtual machines, and services) that canbe rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort orinteraction with a provider of the service. This cloud model may includeat least five characteristics, at least three service models, and atleast four deployment models.

Characteristics are as follows:

On-demand self-service: a cloud consumer can unilaterally provisioncomputing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, asneeded automatically without requiring human interaction with theservice's provider.

Broad network access: capabilities are available over a network andaccessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneousthin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).

Resource pooling: the provider's computing resources are pooled to servemultiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physicaland virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according todemand. There is a sense of location independence in that the consumergenerally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of theprovided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher levelof abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter).

Rapid elasticity: capabilities can be rapidly and elasticallyprovisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out andrapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilitiesavailable for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can bepurchased in any quantity at any time.

Measured service: cloud systems automatically control and optimizeresource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level ofabstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage,processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can bemonitored, controlled, and reported providing transparency for both theprovider and consumer of the utilized service.

Service Models are as follows:

Software as a Service (SaaS): the capability provided to the consumer isto use the provider's applications running on a cloud infrastructure.The applications are accessible from various client circuits through athin client interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based e-mail).The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloudinfrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage,or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exceptionof limited user-specific application configuration settings.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): the capability provided to the consumer isto deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquiredapplications created using programming languages and tools supported bythe provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlyingcloud infrastructure including networks, servers, operating systems, orstorage, but has control over the deployed applications and possiblyapplication hosting environment configurations.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): the capability provided to theconsumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and otherfundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy andrun arbitrary software, which can include operating systems andapplications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlyingcloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage,deployed applications, and possibly limited control of select networkingcomponents (e.g., host firewalls).

Deployment Models are as follows:

Private cloud: the cloud infrastructure is operated solely for anorganization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party andmay exist on-premises or off-premises.

Community cloud: the cloud infrastructure is shared by severalorganizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns(e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and complianceconsiderations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third partyand may exist on-premises or off-premises.

Public cloud: the cloud infrastructure is made available to the generalpublic or a large industry group and is owned by an organization sellingcloud services.

Hybrid cloud: the cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or moreclouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities butare bound together by standardized or proprietary technology thatenables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting forload-balancing between clouds).

A cloud computing environment is service oriented with a focus onstatelessness, low coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability.At the heart of cloud computing is an infrastructure comprising anetwork of interconnected nodes.

Referring now to FIG. 4, a schematic of an example of a cloud computingnode is shown. Cloud computing node 10 is only one example of a suitablecloud computing node and is not intended to suggest any limitation as tothe scope of use or functionality of embodiments of the inventiondescribed herein. Regardless, cloud computing node 10 is capable ofbeing implemented and/or performing any of the functionality set forthhereinabove.

In cloud computing node 10, there is a computer system/server 12, whichis operational with numerous other general purpose or special purposecomputing system environments or configurations. Examples of well-knowncomputing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may besuitable for use with computer system/server 12 include, but are notlimited to, personal computer systems, server computer systems, thinclients, thick clients, hand-held or laptop circuits, multiprocessorsystems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmableconsumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputer systems, mainframecomputer systems, and distributed cloud computing environments thatinclude any of the above systems or circuits, and the like.

Computer system/server 12 may be described in the general context ofcomputer system-executable instructions, such as program modules, beingexecuted by a computer system. Generally, program modules may includeroutines, programs, objects, components, logic, data structures, and soon that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract datatypes. Computer system/server 12 may be practiced in distributed cloudcomputing environments where tasks are performed by remote processingcircuits that are linked through a communications network. In adistributed cloud computing environment, program modules may be locatedin both local and remote computer system storage media including memorystorage circuits.

As shown in FIG. 4, computer system/server 12 in cloud computing node 10is shown in the form of a general-purpose computing circuit. Thecomponents of computer system/server 12 may include, but are not limitedto, one or more processors or processing units 16, a system memory 28,and a bus 18 that couples various system components including systemmemory 28 to processor 16.

Bus 18 represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures,including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, anaccelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of avariety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation,such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus,Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, VideoElectronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and PeripheralComponent Interconnects (PCI) bus.

Computer system/server 12 typically includes a variety of computersystem readable media. Such media may be any available media that isaccessible by computer system/server 12, and it includes both volatileand non-volatile media, removable and non-removable media.

System memory 28 can include computer system readable media in the formof volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM) 30 and/or cachememory 32. Computer system/server 12 may further include otherremovable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computer system storagemedia. By way of example only, storage system 34 can be provided forreading from and writing to a non-removable, non-volatile magnetic media(not shown and typically called a “hard drive”). Although not shown, amagnetic disk drive for reading from and writing to a removable,non-volatile magnetic disk (e.g., a “floppy disk”), and an optical diskdrive for reading from or writing to a removable, non-volatile opticaldisk such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or other optical media can be provided.In such instances, each can be connected to bus 18 by one or more datamedia interfaces. As will be further depicted and described below,memory 28 may include at least one program product having a set (e.g.,at least one) of program modules that are configured to carry out thefunctions of embodiments of the invention.

Program/utility 40, having a set (at least one) of program modules 42,may be stored in memory 28 by way of example, and not limitation, aswell as an operating system, one or more application programs, otherprogram modules, and program data. Each of the operating system, one ormore application programs, other program modules, and program data orsome combination thereof, may include an implementation of a networkingenvironment. Program modules 42 generally carry out the functions and/ormethodologies of embodiments of the invention as described herein.

Computer system/server 12 may also communicate with one or more externalcircuits 14 such as a keyboard, a pointing circuit, a display 24, etc.;one or more circuits that enable a user to interact with computersystem/server 12; and/or any circuits (e.g., network card, modem, etc.)that enable computer system/server 12 to communicate with one or moreother computing circuits. Such communication can occur via Input/Output(I/O) interfaces 22. Still yet, computer system/server 12 cancommunicate with one or more networks such as a local area network(LAN), a general wide area network (WAN), and/or a public network (e.g.,the Internet) via network adapter 20. As depicted, network adapter 20communicates with the other components of computer system/server 12 viabus 18. It should be understood that although not shown, other hardwareand/or software components could be used in conjunction with computersystem/server 12. Examples, include, but are not limited to: microcode,circuit drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays,RAID systems, tape drives, and data archival storage systems, etc.

Referring now to FIG. 5, illustrative cloud computing environment 50 isdepicted. As shown, cloud computing environment 50 comprises one or morecloud computing nodes 10 with which local computing circuits used bycloud consumers, such as, for example, personal digital assistant (PDA)or cellular telephone 54A, desktop computer 54B, laptop computer 54C,and/or automobile computer system 54N may communicate. Nodes 10 maycommunicate with one another. They may be grouped (not shown) physicallyor virtually, in one or more networks, such as Private, Community,Public, or Hybrid clouds as described hereinabove, or a combinationthereof. This allows cloud computing environment 50 to offerinfrastructure, platforms and/or software as services for which a cloudconsumer does not need to maintain resources on a local computingcircuit. It is understood that the types of computing circuits 54A-Nshown in FIG. 8 are intended to be illustrative only and that computingnodes 10 and cloud computing environment 50 can communicate with anytype of computerized circuit over any type of network and/or networkaddressable connection (e.g., using a web browser).

Referring now to FIG. 6, a set of functional abstraction layers providedby cloud computing environment 50 (FIG. 5) is shown. It should beunderstood in advance that the components, layers, and functions shownin FIG. 6 are intended to be illustrative only and embodiments of theinvention are not limited thereto. As depicted, the following layers andcorresponding functions are provided:

Hardware and software layer 60 includes hardware and softwarecomponents. Examples of hardware components include: mainframes 61; RISC(Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture based servers 62;servers 63; blade servers 64; storage circuits 65; and networks andnetworking components 66. In some embodiments, software componentsinclude network application server software 67 and database software 68.

Virtualization layer 70 provides an abstraction layer from which thefollowing examples of virtual entities may be provided: virtual servers71; virtual storage 72; virtual networks 73, including virtual privatenetworks; virtual applications and operating systems 74; and virtualclients 75.

In one example, management layer 80 may provide the functions describedbelow. Resource provisioning 81 provides dynamic procurement ofcomputing resources and other resources that are utilized to performtasks within the cloud computing environment. Metering and Pricing 82provide cost tracking as resources are utilized within the cloudcomputing environment, and billing or invoicing for consumption of theseresources. In one example, these resources may comprise applicationsoftware licenses. Security provides identity verification for cloudconsumers and tasks, as well as protection for data and other resources.User portal 83 provides access to the cloud computing environment forconsumers and system administrators. Service level management 84provides cloud computing resource allocation and management such thatrequired service levels are met. Service Level Agreement (SLA) planningand fulfillment 85 provide pre-arrangement for, and procurement of,cloud computing resources for which a future requirement is anticipatedin accordance with an SLA.

Workloads layer 90 provides examples of functionality for which thecloud computing environment may be utilized. Examples of workloads andfunctions which may be provided from this layer include: mapping andnavigation 91; software development and lifecycle management 92; virtualclassroom education delivery 93; data analytics processing 94;transaction processing 95; and, more particularly relative to thepresent invention, the fuel deal advertisement system 100 describedherein.

The descriptions of the various embodiments of the present inventionhave been presented for purposes of illustration, but are not intendedto be exhaustive or limited to the embodiments disclosed. Manymodifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skillin the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the describedembodiments. The terminology used herein was chosen to best explain theprinciples of the embodiments, the practical application or technicalimprovement over technologies found in the marketplace, or to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodimentsdisclosed herein.

Further, Applicant's intent is to encompass the equivalents of all claimelements, and no amendment to any claim of the present applicationshould be construed as a disclaimer of any interest in or right to anequivalent of any element or feature of the amended claim.

What is claimed is:
 1. A fuel deal advertisement system, the systemcomprising: a navigation route and fuel availability determining circuitconfigured to determine a plurality of navigation route maps, eachnavigation route map including at least one fuel refill center for eachof the plurality of navigation routes; an advertisement generatingcircuit configured to generate an advertisement that includes a displayshowing a combined advertisement of a fuel cost at the at least one fuelrefill center and a product advertised by the at least one fuel refillcenter sold at the at least one fuel refill center for each of the atleast one fuel refill center included on the plurality of navigationroute maps; an advertisement playing circuit configured to play theadvertisement for each of the at least one fuel refill center accordingto a predetermined rank of the advertisements; and a route selectingcircuit configured to query a user of a vehicle to select a route of theplurality of navigation route maps including a preferred fuel refillcenter that the user wants to visit based on the advertisement, whereinthe route selecting circuit determines the route which includes thepreferred fuel refill center based on the user selecting the combinedadvertisement, and wherein, if the plurality of navigation route mapsoverlap each other at a point along travel of the plurality ofnavigation route maps, the advertisement generating circuit generatesthe advertisement to entice the user to not stop at a first fuel refillcenter that was originally selected but stop at a later fuel refillcenter.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of navigationroute maps includes a first navigation route that can be completed witha current fuel capability of the vehicle and a second navigation routethat is longer than the current fuel capability of the vehicle.
 3. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the plurality of navigation route mapsincludes a navigation route that is longer than a current fuelcapability of the vehicle.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein theplurality of navigation route maps includes a first navigation routethat can be completed with a current fuel capability of the vehicle anda second navigation route that is longer than the current fuelcapability of the vehicle, and wherein the second navigation routeincludes at least one fuel refill center that causes the advertisementgenerating circuit to generate the advertisement to the vehicle.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the navigation route and fuel availabilitydetermining circuit maps a fuel refill center on a navigational routelocated at a distance on the navigational route less than the currentfuel capability of the vehicle.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein theadvertisement comprises at least one of an audio advertisement, a videoadvertisement, and an audio-video advertisement.
 7. The system of claim1, wherein a plurality of fuel refill centers are provided for each ofthe plurality of navigation routes, and wherein the advertisementcomprises a customized deal related to each of the plurality of fuelrefill centers, respectively, stored in an audio and audio-visualadvertisement database.
 8. The system of claim 1, wherein theadvertisement is generated by the advertisement generating circuit basedon a past advertisement that caused the user to select the routeincluding the fuel refill center.
 9. The system of claim 1, wherein theadvertisement is generated by the advertisement generating circuit basedon a past selection via the route selecting circuit.
 10. The system ofclaim 1, wherein a plurality of fuel refill centers are provided foreach of the plurality of navigation routes, and wherein theadvertisement generating circuit generates a second advertisement foreach of the plurality of fuel refill centers included on the pluralityof navigation route maps to compete against the advertisement generatedby a different fuel refill center.
 11. The system of claim 1, whereinthe predetermined rank is based on at least one of: a closest fuelrefill center, a time stamp of the advertisement; a location of thevehicle; a prior purchase by a user of the vehicle at the fuel refillcenter generating the advertisement; and a popularity of the fuel refillcenter generating the advertisement.
 12. The system of claim 1, whereinthe advertisement playing circuit plays all of the advertisementsaccording to the predetermined rank, and wherein the route selectingcircuit is further configured to stop the advertisement playing circuitfrom playing advertisements if the user of the vehicle makes aselection.
 13. The system of claim 1, wherein a plurality of fuel refillcenters are provided for each of the plurality of navigation routes, andwherein the user of the vehicle selects the route to take based on theuser of the vehicle preferring the advertisement for the preferred fuelrefill center over other advertisements for the plurality of fuel refillcenters.
 14. The system of claim 1, wherein the navigation route andfuel availability determining circuit is further configured to determinea second set of a plurality of navigation route maps including aplurality of fuel refill centers for each of the plurality of navigationroutes of the second set after the user of the vehicle selects theroute, and wherein the advertisement generating circuit generates a newadvertisement for each fuel refill center of the plurality of fuelrefill centers located on the second set of the plurality of navigationroute maps such that the user of the vehicle can select a new routebased on the new advertisement.
 15. A fuel deal advertisement method,comprising: determining a plurality of navigation route maps, eachnavigation route map including at least one fuel refill center for eachof the plurality of navigation routes; generating an advertisement thatincludes a display showing a combined advertisement of a fuel cost atthe at least one fuel refill center and a product advertised by the atleast one fuel refill center sold at the at least one fuel refill centerfor each of the at least one fuel refill center included on theplurality of navigation route maps; playing the advertisement for eachof the at least one fuel refill center according to a predetermined rankof the advertisements; and querying a user of a vehicle to select aroute of the plurality of navigation route maps including a preferredfuel refill center that the user wants to visit based on theadvertisement, wherein the querying further determines the route whichincludes the preferred fuel refill center based on the user selectingthe combined advertisement, wherein, if the plurality of navigationroute maps overlap each other at a point along travel of the pluralityof navigation route maps, the generating generates the advertisement toentice the user to not stop at a first fuel refill center that wasoriginally selected but sop at a later fuel refill center.
 16. Themethod of claim 15, wherein the plurality of navigation route mapsincludes a first navigation route that can be completed with a currentfuel capability of the vehicle and a second navigation route that islonger than the current fuel capability of the vehicle.
 17. The methodof claim 15, wherein the plurality of navigation route maps includes anavigation route that is longer than a current fuel capability of thevehicle.
 18. The method of claim 15, wherein a plurality of fuel refillcenters are provided for each of the plurality of navigation routes, andwherein the generating generates a second advertisement for each of theplurality of fuel refill centers included on the plurality of navigationroute maps to compete against the advertisement generated by a differentfuel refill center.
 19. The method of claim 15, wherein a plurality offuel refill centers are provided for each of the plurality of navigationroutes, and wherein the user of the vehicle selects the route to takebased on the user of the vehicle preferring the advertisement for thepreferred fuel refill center over other advertisements for the pluralityof fuel refill centers.
 20. A non-transitory computer-readable recordingmedium recording a fuel deal advertisement program, the program causinga computer to perform: determining a plurality of navigation route maps,each navigation route map including at least one fuel refill center foreach of the plurality of navigation routes; generating an advertisementthat includes a display showing a combined advertisement of a fuel costat the at least one fuel refill center and a product advertised by theat least one fuel refill center sold at the at least one fuel refillcenter for each of the at least one fuel refill center included on theplurality of navigation route maps; playing the advertisement for eachof the at least one fuel refill center according to a predetermined rankof the advertisements; and querying a user of a vehicle to select aroute of the plurality of navigation route maps including a preferredfuel refill center that the user wants to visit based on theadvertisement, wherein the querying further determines the route whichincludes the preferred fuel refill center based on the user selectingthe combined advertisement, and wherein, if the plurality of navigationroute maps overlap each other at a point along travel of the pluralityof navigation route maps, the generating generates the advertisement toentice the user to not stop at a first fuel refill center that wasoriginally selected but stop at a later fuel refill center.